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Episodes
Thursday Nov 30, 2023
Thursday Nov 30, 2023
Oh the Drama, Is this the next Netflix limited series?. In this special 'early release' episode Alistair and Sean take a look at the last 2 weeks and the significant corporate drama around what may arguably be the biggest tech company in the world right now, OpenAI, and their embattled CEO, Former CEO, again CEO Sam Altman.
Hot off the presses a OpenAI press release, made after our recording
https://openai.com/blog/sam-altman-returns-as-ceo-openai-has-a-new-initial-board
For a breakdown of events witha. timeline and some of the personalities involved:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-26/openai-sam-altman-board-inside-the-chaotic-week/103149570
A deeper dive into the makeup of OpenAI:https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/what-is-openai
OpenAI: https://openai.com/
ChatGPT: https://openai.com/chatgpt
Q* (QStar): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q*
NVIDIA: https://www.nvidia.com
Microsoft: https://microsoft.com/ai
And for those interested a speculative deep dive into what Q* might actually be and why it really matters:
https://www.interconnects.ai/p/q-star
Contact Details
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Wednesday Nov 22, 2023
Wednesday Nov 22, 2023
This week Alistair and Sean start trying to demystify DevSecOps. They pull it apart from the business value perspective and discuss the why and what of it in a way that is easy to relate to. There will be a followup Part 2 where they dive deeper into the how of making DevSecOps work and moving left in the development pipeline.
Contact Details
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Monday Nov 06, 2023
Monday Nov 06, 2023
This week Alistair and Sean tackle the big hairy technology Quantum Computing and start the process of demystifying what it is how it works and why we would should care.
Links:
https://newsroom.ibm.com/2022-11-09-IBM-Unveils-400-Qubit-Plus-Quantum-Processor-and-Next-Generation-IBM-Quantum-System-Two
https://newsroom.ibm.com/IBM-research?item=32425
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tswarren_ais-social-responsibility-plot-twist-doing-activity-7124838672121704449-zuBZ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
https://www.spinquanta.com/products - 2Qubit desktop computer
Contact Details
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
Tuesday Oct 24, 2023
This episode Alistair and Sean do something a bit different. We bring Bernard Hickey in to talk about politics and economics and we try and demystify the why of technology under investments in New Zealand.
Bernard is an independent speaker and writer about economics & politics. He produces email newsletter + podcast for subscribers via thekaka.substack.com & 5in5withANZ.substack.com and Podcasts weekly via The Spinoff's When the Facts Change.
Bernard Hickey
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-hickey-44334a14/
https://thekaka.substack.com/
https://5in5withanz.substack.com/
https://thespinoff.co.nz/podcasts/when-the-facts-change
Contact Details for Alistair and Sean
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Monday Oct 09, 2023
Monday Oct 09, 2023
This episode we dive into the rise of AI, ChatGPT and some of the risks and benefits AI can provide along with the brilliant commentary of Tim Warren.
Tim Warren is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ambit, a leading NZ AI software company specialising in GPT Conversational AI for customer service automation.
He presents regularly on AI and leadership. With a background in Software and Finance, including roles at Goldman Sachs and JBWere, Tim is also an angel investor with 15+ investments. He's a drummer, music enthusiast, and a dad of twin boys.
Ambit
https://www.ambit.ai/
ChatGPT
https://chat.openai.com/auth/login
Open AI
https://openai.com/
Contact Details
Tim Warren
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tswarren/
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Monday Sep 25, 2023
Monday Sep 25, 2023
This episode we demystify the Alistair's journey into the IT space and how he became a thought leader in security, risk and governance. It is a great story and worth a listen to.
Bulletin board documentary
https://youtu.be/n0OwGSX2IiQ?si=2moXKTFOHK-f1ubh
Al's Geek Lab
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpa_ZxyIl8u1TS3-rS1bTrg
Contact Details
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Tuesday Sep 12, 2023
Tuesday Sep 12, 2023
The Spicy Brain Episode
This episode we welcome 3 wonderful women leading in Cybersecurity and governance. We hear about their journey and what worked and what didn't. Along the way we get to talk about some great different perspectives and how a Spicy Brain can make the work better.
If anything resonates with you don't hesitate to reach out to them.
Women in CyberSecurity Panel
Hilary Waltonhilarywalton@microsoft.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/hilswalton/
Kat Lennox-Steele
kat.lennoxsteele@defend.co.nz
https://www.linkedin.com/in/klennox-steele/
Sasha Mullins
sasha.mullins@cybercx.co.nz
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sasha-mullins-335325a3/
Contact Details
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
Contact Details
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
In This Episode we demystify:
Security and the recent security events
Risk and how risk is measured
What exactly is a CISO and a vCISO
Why Cloud Knowledge needs to be part of a Pen Testers skillset
And our upcoming panel discussion with 3 great women in Security
External Links:
What is a CISO and what do they do:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/revolutioninfosec_ciso-vciso-activity-7090130958212878336-zqpG?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android
Revolution InfoSec Website Link:
revolutioninfosec.com
The CISO that BORED the BOARD Room Video by Alistair:
https://lnkd.in/g2AqtZyc
Criminals go full Viking on CloudNordic, wipe all servers and customer data
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/23/ransomware_wipes_cloudnordic/
CyCognito State of External Exposure Management Report
https://www.cycognito.com/resources/analyst-report/cycognito-state-of-external-exposure-management-report
Referring Episodes
Zero Trust Networking
https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-wydew-124d0b4
Women in Technology episode with Amanda Watsonhttps://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-tg9k5-11c1065
Monday Aug 14, 2023
Monday Aug 14, 2023
Contact Details
Alistair Ross
alistair@revolutioninfosec.com
Web: https://revolutioninfosec.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistairjross https://www.linkedin.com/company/revolutioninfosec
Sean G Muller
seangmuller@technologyleader.co.nz
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Show Notes:
1) OpenAI are being sued.
Since the inception of ChatGPT back in November 2021, controversy has never been far away, and smaller legal battles have always been looming, however, at the end of June, A firm in California filed a class-action lawsuit for "stealing" personal data in order to train ChatGPT.
What is interesting about this case is that depending upon how well prepared the complainants are, OpenAI may be required to fess up to how they trained their model. The only public information about OpenAI's ChatGPT that we really know is that OpenAI scraped 300 billion words from the Internet. We don't know how they scraped them and where they scraped it from. The complainant states that OpenAI trained its model partially with personal information, some of it from social media accounts, including Twitter and Reddit. The complainant goes on to state that OpenAI did so in secret, without registering as a data broker as was required to do under applicable laws.
The most interesting aspect for me is by how much OpenAI are profiting from these sources, or whether they in fact are profiting, OpenAI have oft stated that they do not (yet) turn a profit. Certainly, on paper, OpenAI are worth many billions in unrealised value, and recently Microsoft made a $10B USD stake in them, so that might have turned them into a profit making machine. The fifteen counts in the complaint include privacy violations, negligence in failing to protect personal information, as well as larceny by obtaining large amounts of personal data to train its models by illegal means. The lawsuit has stretched as far as to seek injunctive relief in the form of a temporary freeze on commercial use of OpenAI's products. If granted, this could have vast reaching effects on organisations that currently use OpenAI's model on their own applications or services.
Where do you sit on this Sean? It could be argued that the information that is publicly accessible on the Internet is free for anyone to see, including OpenAI, regardless of whether that is ethically responsible, it certainly is 'freely available'. On the other hand, it could be argued that people have a right to be guardians of their own content. If it is to be used in a wholesale manner by another corporation (potentially for profit), then they must seek permission from the original content author. Doing otherwise could be seen as a violation of privacy.
2) Elon Musk launches new AI company called xAI.
A team around of 12 engineers. His mission he states to 'Understand the true nature of the Universe'. On the website, it states that more information is coming in the following weeks and months, so I won't expect to see anything like an OpenAI or Bard competitor for the foreseeable future. However, they certainly have the chops to do it, remembering that Musk was one of the original founders of OpenAI.
What is interesting is that Musk was also one of the people who recently spoke out about AI as a whole, and took issue with the rapid pace of development (mainly pointed at OpenAI), stating that we should press the pause button on AI development. By launching this startup, it's clear that he's made a u-turn on that decision!
The website states that it is a standalone company, unrelated from Tesla and other Musk companies including Twitter (now called X corp), however Musk states that he will work closely with them to make progress towards xAI's mission. From a privacy perspective, will this mean that it could use tweets (including DMs) as a training model for xAI? Obviously this is possibly where OpenAI are in hot water, as per my previous story, so it will be interesting to find out how transparent Musk will be about the training and development of xAI. However, Musk is well known to be critical about the less than transparent nature of OpenAI, he would likely have a lot of egg on face if he too, chose to be less than open about the training of his model.Obviously this is possibly where OpenAI are in hot water, as per my previous story, so it will be interesting to find out how transparent Musk will be about the training and development of xAI. However, Musk is well known to be critical about the less than transparent nature of OpenAI, he would likely have a lot of egg on face if he too, chose to be less than open about the training of his model.Obviously this is possibly where OpenAI are in hot water, as per my previous story, so it will be interesting to find out how transparent Musk will be about the training and development of xAI. However, Musk is well known to be critical about the less than transparent nature of OpenAI, he would likely have a lot of egg on face if he too, chose to be less than open about the training of his model.Obviously this is possibly where OpenAI are in hot water, as per my previous story, so it will be interesting to find out how transparent Musk will be about the training and development of xAI. However, Musk is well known to be critical about the less than transparent nature of OpenAI, he would likely have a lot of egg on face if he too, chose to be less than open about the training of his model.
3) China has taken a major step in regulating generative AI like ChatGPT
this happened a couple of weeks ago, making it one of the first countries in the world to do so. The first draft of the law was fairly substantial in its punitive measures, which would see companies and individuals breaking the law fined up to 100,000 yuan. The wording was relaxed to allow development of secure and trustworthy chips, software, tools and computing power, however the key provisions in the new law which is to go into law on the 15th of August will require AI service providers to conduct routine, thorough security reviews and all of their algorithms must be registered with the Beijing government. China wants to press ahead in the world of AI, but has lacked the freedom to do so from its government. Companies like Baidu and Alibaba have not released any mainstream AI products (probably for fear of reprisal from the government). It will be interesting to see if this stifles innovation or allows China to leapfrog the USA. Eyes will be on the China following 16th August to see what Alibaba, JD and Baidu have been developing in the background.
4) Bard's quiet updates. On the 14th July, Google quietly released an update to Bard.
The groundbreaking update to Bard is the ability for it to accept images in its prompts. You can take a photo of your fridge and ask Bard to give you some recipes to rustle up, for example.
5) In other update news, ChatGPT got a new Beta feature that is called "Code Interpreter".
With this, you can give ChatGPT a prompt and with the interpreter switched on, it will know how to write and execute python code. It can also accept with file uploads. This is extremely helpful for aspects of data analysis, image conversions, or editing a code file. OpenAI say that the data does not persist past a session and is deleted after the session is gone.
Friday Jul 15, 2022
Friday Jul 15, 2022
This fortnight we dive deep into demystifying the migration to cloud journey that many of you are going through. Apologies for missing the 1st of July episode and Alistair and Sean are working on the coming episodes so let us know if you have a suggestion or want to be a guest.
Your hosts on this intrepid journey to demystify technology can be found across the internet:
Alistair Ross
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alistairjross/
Email: alistair.ross@servian.com
YouTube: youtube.com/AlsGeekLab
Sean Muller
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/seangmuller/
Twitter @seangmuller
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/seangmuller
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgmuller/
Email: sean.muller@servian.com
Discord: seangmuller#1887
Clubhouse: @seangmuller
The Technology Whisperers
Alistair Ross and Sean Muller, who combined bring you 48+ years of technology experience, bring you a podcast to help demystify technologies and provide guidance about where technology is going and how you and your business can use those technologies to get better outcomes. So if you are struggling to understand the technology landscape and where you should be investing to get the best benefits for yourself and your business, come along and listen. Also if you just like cool tech that is what we talk about.